Title

Gonzalo Paul Curiel

Authors

Description

Born in East Chicago, Indiana, in 1953, Gonzalo Paul Curiel received his B.A. from Indiana University in 1976 and then entered the Indiana University Bloomington School of Law. Upon receiving his J.D. in 1979, he began his legal career with the firm of James, James & Manning in Dyer, Indiana, where he worked from 1979 to 1986. He then moved to Southern California where he worked at the firm of Barbosa & Vera. He served as an Assistant United States Attorney, first in the Southern District of California, from 1989 to 2002, and then the Central District of California, from 2002 to 2006. While in the Southern District, Judge Curiel was Chief of the Narcotics Enforcement Section from 1999 to 2002, having previously served as Deputy Chief of that Section for numerous years. He tried more than 300 cases over his 27 years with the U.S. attorney’s office. In 2006 he moved to the bench, sitting on the San Diego County Superior Court until 2012, when President Obama appointed him U.S. district judge for the Southern District of California.

Judge Curiel’s dedication to Maurer Law is deep: In 1998 he co-founded a scholarship to honor his late brother Antonio, a 1975 graduate of the school. Curiel served as the law school's commencement speaker in 2014 and was inducted into the school's Academy of Alumni Fellows in 2016. In 2017, Judge Curiel was appointed to the law school's Board of Visitors.

Keywords

Federal Judges, United States Attorneys, United States District Court for the Southern District of California, Maurer Alumni, Academy of Law Alumni Fellows